I remembered to take photos today- plus I actually have something to take photos of.

Janelle came over today, and we spent most of the day in the living room- her on the ps2 replaying FFIX, and me knitting.

My sock yarn for the sock swap I’m in came in the mail today, and I cast on- I’m doing toe-up Monkey socks, two at once using magic loop. I love this technique!

I cannot get an accurate color on this yarn in photos. The green isn’t THAT bright, and the pink is more vivid, but my camera doesn’t seem to understand that. Ah well, it’s very pretty and VERY soft. It’s this yarn– merino cashmere nylon. Great stuff.

Also, since I didn’t share this before- Autumn and Tiffany gave me a birthday present last weekend that is just awesome– an elephant tea set and tray!

I just haven’t done/made/seen anything worth taking a photo of while also in posession of said camera. I seem to forget it every time it would actually come in handy.

In any case, I’m actually blogging from Autumn and Tiffany’s place today. We’re over here drinking beer and playing rock band. Other than that, today has been fairly uneventful. So today, a yarn review!

I’ve used this yarn three times- my Leyburns, some socks for my dad for last father’s day that I never got a photo of, and my still in progress Lapis socks.

Pros:

Soft and squishy. Very comfy to wear.

Incredible colors, and a huge huge variety- semisolids, variegateds of all kinds, even pastels and nearly-blacks.

Not terribly expensive- $18 a skein for the Lightweight.

Machine washable, so easy care and excellent for gifts.

Very tightly plied, so it will wear very well.

Cons:

A bit thick for fingering weight, so it takes some getting used to.

The variegated colors pool- a lot. There are patterns you can use to get around it, but if you hate pooling, you might want to stick to semi-solids. (Or the Leyburn pattern!)

Not fabulous yardage. If you have very large feet or want tall socks, get two skeins (though then it’s pretty pricey).

This is my all-time favorite sock yarn, honestly. It has great “sproing”, and is by far the most comfy on my feet of any sock yarn. The colors are rich and Tina has the most incredible eye for variegated yarns. I can honestly say I would be delighted to receive ANY of the colors on the Blue Moon website. I have only once found a knot in a skein, and it wasn’t a jump in color, so it was just a matter of doing a quick russian join. I heartily recommend this yarn to anyone that likes squishy socks!

Today was a much better day than yesterday, but since I spent it doing precisely nada, I don’t really have a whole lot to say. Random Thursdays strike again!

I bought this mitten pattern today. That’s what I got the rowan 4-ply soft in tan and brown for. I probably won’t knit them for a few months, though, since trees with leaves are what I’m lookin’ for now.

Cory and I have decided to attempt to be less lame, since we now don’t have to get up until 7am… so we’re going to try staying up until 11. Whee!

The fact that the previous item even made it into this post is proof of how little happened today.

I finished that spreadsheet at work today, which was a huge, huge load off of my mind. Now I can go to work and not get headaches! …as much, anyway!

My sock yarn for the sock swap I’m doing shipped yesterday. I’m excited to start on those, though I still haven’t decided if I’m going to do more Leyburns, or try something else.

That’s, uh… that’s really about it for me. I’ll try to be more interesting tomorrow, but no promises. Nothing I’m knitting is near any sort of completion stage, and I have no plans to start anything new.

I will refrain from going into much detail about today. Suffice to say it was a Very Bad Day up until about 4:00 pm. Not long-term bad- I still have a job (though I was very close to quitting) and I didn’t kill anyone (though mentally there was a wee slasher film playing in my head most of the day), but that’s really the best you can say for it. Here’s hoping for a better tomorrow.

In the mean time, how about some nice pictures of yarn, eh?

Yep, I finished spinning the angora/ramboulliet blend last night. I only had 1.5 oz, so it’s a small skein (about 84 yds of sportweight yarn) but it’s quite soft and bloomed nicely. The angora gives it a bit of a halo.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with it. For those keeping track, I spun it on a 0.9oz Butterfly Girl Designs spindle that Nicole gave me for my birthday, and Janelle gave me the fiber.

At knittin’ kitten tonight (which was bizarrely empty- only three of us showed up!) I didn’t accomplish much. I was very tired, so I just knit a bit of my woodland scarf and spun a little BFL. No noticeable progress, really.

Now all that remains to decide is whether I shower tonight or tomorrow morning. I’m leaning toward the latter… I just want to go to bed.